“I map infinitely intricate worlds of (autistic) consciousness…”
My name is Roberto Picciau, I’m an autistic multidisciplinary artist, and an immigrant with a background in social work.
My mother told me that my brain "fails to maintain (synaptic) bridges," which initiated a lifelong interest in invisible forms of disabled processing and communication. My practice today centres neurodivergent modes of sense-making, attending to how attention, and embodiment generate meaning outside normative frameworks.
I refer to my projects as “pathways,” a metaphor drawn from neural activity: systems that continuously form, splinter, and converge through use.
Working with drawing, video, embroidery, costume, sound, and performance, I challenge the pathologisation of neurodivergent traits. I reframe embodied self-stimulatory behaviour (stimming), hyperfixation (monotropic attention tunnels), and echolalia as generative tools for exploring relational and processual metaphysics, vibration, duration, and repetition. These ways of being are what I work with, not as symptoms to be corrected, but as forms of communication and world-building.
My drawing Surfacing 0003 (2025), exhibited at Sheffield Millennium Gallery, was used to ignite conversations around perception. A concentration-focused performance in costume at Newcastle Contemporary Art gallery (2023), presented during the Now That’s What I Call Art 2 open night, became a catalyst for discussion around masking and disabled perceptions of time.
I have exhibited nationally in galleries, private spaces, art fairs, and arts festivals. Alongside my artistic practice, I have facilitated creative workshops with members of the public and with neurodivergent and socially disadvantaged communities, foregrounding access, care, and collective experimentation.
PATHWAYS:
Although, I am not currently represented by a gallery, my art works are listed by Platform-A Gallery under Associate Artist.
I have exhibited my work nationally, with some of my work now held in private collections, and continually exploring new project opportunities.